Starting in Paris, going to Venice. Any suggestions?

We did an Italian/France itinerary one year that began in Venice & ended in Paris. Here’s the locations where we stayed along the way: Venice, Vicenza, Torino, Annecy, Lyon, Paris.

Patty, one thought. You’re doing this in November, so your daylight hours are going to be short. Think about if you want your daylight hours spent on train travel. Personally, that would lean me towards doing a flight to cover the distance. Either end: from Paris go to Rouen or Chartres, then fly from Paris to Venice and stay a few days in Ferrara, if you haven’t been there. Ravenna is a direct easy train from Ferrara, also, to see the mosaics. Then I’d wrapped up the time in Venice. Or several other options for cities at either end.

For November short daylight hours, I wouldn’t want to spend more than 1-2 hours on a train.

Oh, very good advice, Jean! Thank you. I will rethink plans, I do believe. (We are stuck on November — celebrating my (eek!) 70th birthday.)

I wouldn’t go to Zurich because it’s not that nice. Go to Milan for three nights and include a day trip to Varenna and Bellagio on Lake Como. From Milan you can also take day trips to Florence, Verona and Padua.
I’ve traveled in Europe in the month of November and the sun doesn’t set until 5p so don’t worry about it getting too dark too early.

I thought Ravenna and Padua were terrific lesser known cities and easy to connect near Venice. For sacred artwork, Ravenna’s impressive mosaics are outstanding and historic. In Padua, the Scrovengni Chapel (by Giotto) was worth the trip alone, but there’s also the ultra impressive Basilica of St. Anthony. I really hope to return to both cities.

I've messaged a forum member who I know just did Venice to Paris on the train to respond. I've only flown that route which was pretty easy on Easy Jet. (eyeroll, lol!!)

Thanks for the "heads up!", Pam.

Yes, we recently took the train from Venice to Paris, but I'm not sure how relevant our experience is to Patty's question.

We did the entire trip in one day, because we had been spending a week in Venice, and needed to get to Beaune, France, to join a Seymour Travels tour. My husband hates flying, especially on short hops, so I checked out the trains.

There are a lot of choices; we opted to leave Venice at 8:18 in the morning; we chose the Frecciarossa train that went through Torino rather than through Milan. We arrived in Torino about noon, and changed to an Inoui train to Paris that left at 13:35, arriving at Paris Gare du Nord at 19:14. Well, it was about 40" late, which caused a bit of anxiety with our dinner and hotel reservations, but this will give you an idea of how long the actual journey is.

We did go first class the entire way; I don't remember what the cost difference was, but we wanted enough room to be able to stretch out a bit, since we were spending almost 12 hours boxed in.

We bought the tickets through thetrainline dot com, and had no trouble.

I love your idea of spreading the trip out, with time to explore a couple of other places along the way. We did consider that, but weren't willing to steal any days at all from Venice!

Thank you, MaryPat, Angie1010, Pam, and Jane!

It's good to get these opinions and suggestions. FYI, we will have, most likely, three full days (four nights) in Venice before we head on to other spots. Our trip ends in Rome, so my next bit of work will be what to do between Venice and Rome (we've been to Florence and Bologna several times so I want to do something new this time).

Yes, Pam, we want to spread the trip out — that long train ride is a bit much for us, I think!

One possible option: Train to Lyon (short!), train to Torino, and finally train to Venice. But I do keep playing around with it all! It's part of the fun of travel, after all. 😊

I suppose advice consisting of, "Don't go to Venice" would be regarded as unhelpful.

J/k, kind of. My view is that everyone needs to go to Venice once. And only once.

Okay, jphbucks, I do get it. Honest. But we celebrated my husband's birthday in Venice at a particular restaurant and we are going to do my 70th there. Period.

I know folks think it's over rated or done too much, but ... well ... what can I say? 70. It will be my final visit there, I do know that.

Paris and Venice are two of the most romantic cities in Europe, if not the world. Go! Enjoy! And bonne anniversaire on your birthday!

Ditto on the bonne anniversaire. Have a great trip, youngun.

Thanks, Judy and jphbucks.

And I'll take the youn'un bit any old day. (Absolutely no emphasis on old in that sentence!)

Looks like you have five nights and four full days to work with. Jean has a good idea, pick some places near Paris and/or Venice for day trips to fill the gap, and fly Paris-Venice nonstop. Alternatively, pick one or two places more or less along the way that you want to visit, with good train service -- for example, Lyon, Marseilles, or Milan -- and spend two or three nights in each. Avoid one-night stands and all-day trains if possible. You know where you might want to go, where you've already been, etc. I like trains and for me this would be an opportunity to add more value to the trip.

Thanks, Dick.

It looks like we might do a short train to Lyon and then a longer train to Torino. Then on to Venice. The question now is which one is two nights and which is three? If we can avoid planes we do ... even though the flight is short the amount of time one must spend in all, what with security and all, it ends up being more time than I care to spend in an airport.

Besides, I do love trains!

I haven't been to Torino but I think Lyon would be worth the three nights. Two full days, plus a big chunk of your arrival day depending on when you take the two-hour train ride. Stay in the Presque-Ile area between the two rivers. I liked the Hotel des Artistes, near the center and the Saone River. Metro service is very good, underground and trams. Good walking city except uphill to the basilica, where a funicular takes care of the problem. On a good day you can see Mont-Blanc from there. It's a food capital, which may appeal to you more than to me. Great for Roman sites including the excellent Gallo Roman Museum. Also one of France's best art museums. Don't get me started.....;-)

Thank you, Dick. I will stick to our plan, then, and do Lyon for the three nights.

I have looked at the hotel you mention. Just having to decide if we can afford it — for some reason the third night is more costly!

And hey, you go right ahead and give me more info if you want! I'm all ears. :-)

for some reason the third night is more costly!

Is the third night the 16th of November?

It sounds like you got a cushty weekend rate for the first two days, then the work week begins for the Monday. I'd expect that in many cases

Yes, Nigel, that final night is the 16th. I didn't know to expect it to be more costly — now I know. Thanks.

I found one place that is so much less I worry about it. Anyone heard of "Total Charlemagne by Happyculture"? (Never mind: they will be doing renovations and I don't want to deal with the noise!)

Patty, here's a current thread on Lyon that's collecting good info you might want to use.

RS also recommends the Hotel des Celestins and Hotel du Theatre, both close to the Hotel des Artistes, in case that helps. Don't know about the Happyculture chain -- but the Charlemagne brand has proven durable since 800 AD! ;-)

Thank you, Dick. I'll check out the link and those other hotels. (And I'll get back to the RS book as well to see what else I've managed to skip over.)

And very funny about Charlemagne! Hah! (My late uncle had a family tree that included Charlemagne. For some reason I was extremely skeptical.)

According to Wikipedia, Charlemagne had twelve children in wedlock and other seven outside it. Fast forward 1200 years and we're all probably related! But don't look for the family discount at the hotel.

Aw shoot, Dick. I was hoping for a good discount. So it goes ....

Okay, not really. I've sort of nixed that place anyway. My updated spreadsheet does have a good number of hotels to pick from, though. (Yes, I do a spreadsheet. I go a little nuts when I'm putting together a trip!)

Patty, for the Torino part of your trip, I have a few suggestions. It’s a beautiful city with lots of arcades to provide cover from rain (and hot summer sun, when we were there) as you walk around. It’s nice to walk along the river Po as well. There’s a great café culture there, with several historic cafés to visit and enjoy coffee and a treat. Many options for apéritivo , some generous enough to be a light dinner!

The Egyptian museum is awesome, and the largest Egyptian museum in the world outside of Cairo.

The Mole Antonelliana is a cool cinema museum, arranged in a spiral like a spool of film, with a glass lift that takes you up to the dome for scenic views on a clear day.

https://www.museorisorgimentotorino.it/en/ I found this museum about the unification of Italy interesting, learning more about the city states that came together to become Italy.

Gianduja chocolates, which I love, were invented in Torino, and are really popular…worth checking out if you like hazelnut and chocolate. Guido Gobino was my favorite shop, and recommended to me by friends who lived in Torino. They offered a sample before buying. :-). Here’s an article: https://weekendinturin.com/chocolate/

We enjoyed Torino, and didn’t find it as “touristy” as other big cities in Italy.

Laurie

Thank you, Laurie! This is all very helpful. I've still not nailed down where we'll stay, but I'm getting close to making. decision and I'll see where the places I've looked at are on a map compared to places you've noted.